A Guide to Growing Up - Level 8 (Quotes, One-liners, Misc. Thoughts)

All things are subject to interpretation. Whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power, not truth.
– Frederich Nietzsche

Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.
– Arthur Schopenhauer

The more a man can forget, the greater number of metamorphoses which his life can undergo; the more he can remember, the more divine his life becomes.
– Soren Kierkegaard

Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.
– Mark Twain

Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.
– Albert Einstein

America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.
– Abraham Lincoln

To those of you who are reserved and want your privacy, how can you expect to be remembered? To those of you who celebrate mediocrity, how can you expect to be special to anyone? To those of you who are afraid of what's different and strange, how can you expect to not be bored? Connect yourself.
– Aaron Malone

Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.
– Salvador Dali

I’m worried that students will take their obedient place in society and look to become successful cogs in the wheel – let the wheel spin around them as it wants without taking a look at what they’re doing. I’m concerned that students not become passive acceptors of the official doctrine that’s handed down to them from the White House, the media, textbooks, teachers, and preachers.
– Howard Zinn

When you're going through Hell, keep going.
– Winston Churchill

Dear Political Activists,
All your chanting, marching, voting, picketing, boycotting and letter-writing will not change a thing; you will never right the wrongs of this world. The only thing your activity will accomplish is to make some of you feel better. Such activity makes powerless people feel useful, and provides them the illusion that they’re making a difference. But it doesn’t work. Nothing changes. The powerful keep the power. That’s why they’re called the powerful.
This is similar to people’s belief that love can overcome everything, that it has some special power. It doesn’t. Except one on one. One on one, love is incredibly powerful. It is a beautiful thing. But if love had any power to change the world, it would have prevailed by now. Love can’t change the world. It’s nice. It’s pleasant. It’s better than hate. But it has no special power over things. It just feels good. Love yourself, find another person to love and feel good.
Love, George Carlin

Save your prayers and wishes. Be the force of good in the universe yourself.
– Aaron Malone

All I ask of you is one thing: please don’t be cynical. I hate cynicism — it’s my least favorite quality and it doesn’t lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen.
– Conan O’Brien, his last night hosting The Tonight Show.

People are not prizes or trophies to be won. In addition, you cannot define your own value by the level of attractiveness or social status of your significant other because when they drop dead, you're still you.
– Aaron Malone

Where are my wanderers and adventure-seekers? Tell me anything, except you're too busy working. If you're going to barely survive anyway, why not barely work? There's a lot at stake here, such as… everything! This is the prime of your life that you're sacrificing. Doesn't that register to you at all?
– Aaron Malone

If the time spent wishing for things we don't have was spent being happy with what we do have, everything might be okay.
– Aaron Malone

I think the warning labels on alcoholic beverages are too bland. They should be more vivid. Here are a few I would suggest:
“Alcohol will turn you into the same asshole your father was.”
“Drinking will significantly improve your chances of murdering a loved one.”
“If you drink long enough, at some point you will vomit up the lining of your stomach.”
“Use this product and you may wake up in Morocco wearing a cowboy suit and tongue-kissing a transmission salesman.”
“Men: When emptying your pockets after a night of using this product, you may come across a human finger, a wad of Turkish money and a snapshot of a naked ex-convict named Dogmeat. The photo will be inscribed, ‘To Dave, my new old lady.’”
“Women: Drink enough of this and you will spend the rest of your life raising malnourished children in a rusting trailer with a man who sleeps all day. Except for the rapes.”
– George Carlin

Why is it that I can walk onto a street corner in St. Louis and see every decade of the 1900’s stylistically represented in clothing, hair, makeup, etc.? What is at the root of all this nostalgia? I wasn’t quite sure, but now I have a theory I’d like to share. (cont…)
I think Americans are so very hungry for what we’ve lost over the years. I think we’re also in future shock a bit. We seem to crave simpler times. In CARS, the sad plight of a former Route 66 boom town is investigated–mean old Route 40 cut right past their burgh to save ten minutes of driving time. “Driving wasn’t always about saving time, it was about having a good time…” Despite the schmaltz, I think Pixar has its finger on the pulse of a problem that seems to be preoccupying the aging gen-exers as well as some in our own generation. Namely, with the greater and greater efficiency of our working society, we seem to be losing a lot of room within which to live our lives. Who needs experiences when we can live vicariously through people much richer, much hotter than we are? Who doesn’t compare their real-world experiences to TV and film? Raise your hand. In our world, the supermarket is no longer the alternative to your friendly neighborhood grocer–it’s an institution. Do you know the people who check you out at the grocery store? I don’t. There are still people alive who experienced a completely different way of living, and I fear for this country they are the last generation to do so. We’re all speeding through life rather anonymously (except for on MySpace–we know everyone there). Now with the iPod culture, people can be in a total bubble and create around them whatever they want without having to interact with others unless they deem it absolutely necessary. Only emperors have been able to do this in the past. We’re all little Napoleons now. Things in many ways just aren’t what they used to be, and they probably never will be again. I think these aspects of our lives are greatly missed. I attribute the current trend toward retrophilia to that sentiment. Things are changing fast. And we can’t go back. Can we?
– Joan Hunter